VOORHEES— It’s not just the offense that has caused an ugly stumble from the gate by the Flyers for the second season in a row. The defense’s ability to move hasn’t exactly stood out, either.

With each passing hard-work day, however, head coach Craig Berube says his defense is making strides in its efforts to go from a not-so united unit that invited panic in its zone and didn’t provide enough opportunistic offensive help to a smoother, faster and more effective entity.

It remains to be seen if everybody is going to be able to keep up, however.

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“Skating is the thing,” elder defender Kimmo Timonen said Monday as the Flyers prepared for a Vancouver Canucks visit Tuesday night. “When we do skate, we’re a really hard team to play against. When we don’t skate it seems other teams have an easy way to get out of the zone and find open guys.

“We played really well (in Detroit),” Timonen added, and yes, he was talking about the Flyers’ 5-2 loss there Saturday. “I think we actually controlled that game 5-on-5, but we took seven or eight penalties, and against any good power play that’s going to leave a mark.”

In Detroit, of seven minor Flyers infractions, five of them were of the catch-up kind (either holding or tripping), and three of the seven were committed by defensemen — those guys who have to start skating harder to enable this switch-on-the-fly system change.

“You’ve got to be on your toes a little bit more — not as much hesitation,” said Luke Schenn, who has seen his average ice time this season drop about 6½ minutes per game off last season’s pace. “It seems like everything’s a little higher tempo right now, and obviously that boils down to skating, communication and trying to work through things system-wise. It feels like it actually is coming and that’s the good news.

“Skating is a huge part of it. Sometimes you get caught standing and watching a little bit too much; it’s kind of a reserved (style) rather than reading and reacting and being on your toes a little bit more. They want us to close on things a little bit quicker, and offensively try to join the offense a little bit.”

If that’s not enough of a challenge, Berube issued one more after the Red Wings loss: Try to pick up the pace and catch up to the opposition without using hands or sticks to help you get there.

In other words, the Flyers’ league-leading pace of 45 penalties is the only part of their game that Berube insists has to slow down.

“It’s getting there,” he said. “You’ve got to play well without the puck. That means you have to get back. It’s tough. It’s hard to get used to. But we’ll get used to it. ... We’re being positive here. You’ve got to put the work in, you’ve got to make sure you’re focused and we have to clean some things up — the penalties and the special teams.”

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Ah, yes, those special teams.

In the midst of a system change that is presenting an intense challenge for a team already feeling the heat of losing five of its first six games, the Flyers have slipped a bit in a part of the game they once excelled in ... even during last season’s playoff miss.

The Flyers have been shut out on the power play over their last four games, and overall are 2 for 27 on the season (7.4 percent success ratio), putting them 28th out of 30 league teams in that department. On the penalty kill, they’ve succeeded in 26 of 33 shorthanded situations, placing them 18th overall. The Flyers were third in the league on power play and ninth overall on the penalty kill last season.

While it’s easy to figure the penalty kill will improve if they stop giving teams so many opportunities to go on the power play every game, the scoring-challenged Flyers are clearly concerned about their power play dropoff.

“We didn’t practice that in preseason at all,” Timonen said. “So I knew that was going to be trouble early in the year, and it has been. Now it’s a matter of getting back to basics. ... It’s all about good passing and shooting the puck and we’re not doing that right now. Obviously, we don’t have the confidence right now, but it will come.”

“I think right now, we’re just a little nervous sometimes during the game,” added Jake Voracek. “If one power play goes wrong, it’s like we say, ‘Oh (crap), here we go again. It’s just not working right now. We’ve got the same group for the last three years, so we know what we have to do to get better.”

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NOTES: Andrej Meszaros has been the defenseman most impacted by the new emphasis on speed-skating. He was a healthy scratch in Detroit (in favor of Erik Gustafsson) and probably will sit again Tuesday against the Canucks. “It’s tough to sit him out,” Berube said of Meszaros. “He’s been around a long time, he’s a good player. I just didn’t see enough from him and I wanted to get Gus in there.” ... As for Luke Schenn’s diminished ice time, Berube partially blamed it on the situation the Flyers so frequently find themselves in, needing to catch up. “We have some pretty skilled offensive defensemen, and when you’re down a goal and pressing you’re going to play guys that have those offensive instincts,” Schenn said. “I understand all that.”